Tomorrow night all three of the Clinic poets will be reading at Roddy Lumsden's new event at the Betsey Trotwood, check the Facebook here. Fifteen poets will read four poems each, three favourites by other poets (an old poem, a new one and a 'blue' poem) and one of their own which has a borrowed element.
Here's the full line-up, as you can see there's some mighty talent on the bill and several Clinic faves:
Rachael Allen
Liz Berry
Sam Buchan-Watts
Niall Campbell
Kayo Chingonyi
Martina Evans
Katy Evans-Bush
Oli Hazzard
Sarah Howe
Kirsten Irving
Roddy Lumsden
Edward Mackay
Andrew Parkes
Kathy Pimlott
Kate Potts
Entry is £5, which for 15 poets is really not very much at all. The night is broken up into three 30 minute sections at 7.45, 8.30 and 9.10 which gives you plenty of time for a drink and chinwag between all the fine poetry, come along, it'll be lovely to see you there.
Also a little treat for you all this is the old poem I'll be reading (I won't post the new 'borrowed' one up here until some time after the reading so you'll have to come along if you want to hear it). I love Edgar Allan Poe, he's just so good and often talks about death in some really interesting and new ways, which I still find affecting even today. Let's face it most famous for his short stories (although The Raven being a notable exception) and for basically inventing the Gothic. I love his poetry too and this poem is no exception, it's typical of his style, creating a scene awash with Gothic imagery and slowly building tension; its controlled use of metre, along with the interesting use of death, is just great; read him and weep.
The City In The Sea
Lo! Death has reared himself a throne
In a strange city lying alone
Far down within the dim West
Where the good and the bad and the worst and best
Have gone to their eternal rest.
There shrines and palaces and towers
(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)
Resemble nothing that is ours.
Around, by lifting winds forgot,
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
No rays from the holy Heaven come down
On the long night-time of that town;
But the light from out the lurid sea
Streams p the turrets silently -
Gleams up from the pinnacles far and free -
Up domes - up spires - up kingly halls -
Up fanes - up Babylon-like walls -
Up shadowy long forgotten bowers
of sculptured ivy and stone flowers -
Up many and many a marvelous shrine
Whose wreathed friezes intertwine
The viol, the violet, and the vine.
Resignedly beneath the sky
The melancholy waters lie.
So blend the turrets and shadows there
That all seem pendulous in air,
While from a proud tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down.
There open fanes and gaping graves
Yawn level with the luminous waves;
But not the riches there that lie
In each idol's diamond eye -
Not the gayly-jewelled dead
Tempt the waters from their bed;
For no ripples curl, alas!
Along that wilderness of glass -
Mo swellings tell that winds may be
Upon some far-off happier sea -
No heavings hint that winds have been
On seas less hideously serene.
But lo, a stir is in the air!
The wave - there is a movement there!
As if the towers had thrust aside
In slightly sinking the dull tide -
As if their tops had feebly given
A void within the filmy Heaven.
The waves have now a redder glow -
The hours are breathing faint and low -
And when, amid no earthly moans,
Down, down that town shall settle hence,
Hell, rising from a thousand thrones,
Shall do it reverence.
--Edgar Allan Poe